the ghost writer 獵殺幽靈寫手1. Ruth was recruited by Emmett as a CIA agent. 2. Ruth and Emmett decided to get Adam as a puppet in British political circle because of his great acting skills and other characters. But they didn't prepare to let him know the truth all along. 3. Whether Adam joined the party at 75 or 77 (before or after meeting Ruth) is not that important. The purpose is to trick the audience that Adam was lying intentionally. 4. With the help of CIA, Ruth's always been able to provide great advices to Adam and help him to rise in the Party as a star as quick as possible, and finally became the PM. And then Ruth influenced Adam to make all the decisions in favor to the USA. 5. During the process, Adam thought the reason of his success was because of his passion and because of the smart advices from his wife, not knowing the secret behind her. 6. After stepping down, Adam was going to write his memoirs with the help of Mike. Ruth (and the CIA) originally supported that because it might extend Adam's 禮服popularity and his influences in the world's politics. 7. After some in-depth research, Mike had a theory (perhaps no proof yet) about Ruth being a CIA (perhaps after investigating the background of Emmett, or perhaps from some other means, but it doesn't really matter). He tried to tell the theory to Rycart, an enemy of Adam, but no chance (he felt that he was being watched and his phone was being tapped all the time after asking too many questions). Therefore all he could tell Rycart on the phone was that "it's all there at the beginning" (of the manuscript). 8. Since most people would interpret that as "the beginning of the book", i.e. Chapter 1, which is all about the family tree. Thus, even if the CIA overheard it on the tapped phone, they won't find anything there and won't realize that Mike had found out the truth. So he thought he would be safe for a while, and at the same time had a way to leak the story to Rycart or the world. 9. At the same time, Mike tried to expose this 新成屋theory to Adam, (since they were friends, and Adam was in fact out of the loop and didn't know that he was a puppet all along, so Mike thought that it was for the sake of Adam to tell him the truth), but Adam could not believe it. They had a fight. 10. Mike planned to visit Emmett and ask for proof (perhaps to prove the case to Adam, and perhaps to Rycart) more questions. He set the GPS and go. Whether he did go or not doesn't really matter. Emmett could have known it because of the encounter or because of how Ruth overheard the fight between Adam and Mike. No matter what, Emmett sent someone to kill Mike, dumped him on the beach, as if he was drunk and drown. 10. The reason why they (the CIA) need to put the body back on the island but not anywhere else (or even simply made it disappear) because they want to trick Adam (instead of the rest of the world). If mike suddenly disappear, Adam would feel suspicious and try to dig for more. 11. However, Adam stills started to feel suspicious about the case, and so he started 術後面膜to stop taking Ruth advices (as told by Ruth during the dinner with The Ghost). 12. Ruth and Emmett don't know exactly what Rycart knew already. They only knew that the clues was in the manuscript. At the same time, they need to finish the book anyway, so that's why they hired Ewan (the Ghost Writer with no name) . That's the start of the story (both the film and the book). They knew that Rycart was desperate to read the manuscript, and so the lawyer deliberately gave a wrong package for Ewan to hold, so that Rycart would sent someone to steal it. That way, it would trick Rycart to waste some time, and also exposed how eager Rycart was. But the most important of all, it added the suspension for the audience. 13. They wanted Ewan to study the real manuscript with high security and find out exactly what Mike had put in there. That's why they paid such a handsome money for a job which basically just to retouch a finished original. 14. Things turn bad for Adam during that time, and Adam started to act against Ruth 租屋advices (went to Washington instead of UK). 15. Ruth stayed in the house and cried, perhaps because she really felt that it was the end of the whole operation (since Adam found out the truth and started to ignore her). But the audience and Ewan at that time thought that this was solely due to the problem of their broken marriage. 16. The following act of how Ewan and Ruth talked and ate and cried and slept together were just for Ruth to let Ewan feel that Ruth is trust worthy, and would expose to her any secret that Ewan might have found already. 17. The existence of Amelia was to trick the audience to have sympathy on Ruth and trust her more. At that stage, Ewan and the audience were still thinking that there was a secret behind Adam but not anyone else. 18. There could be a slight chance that the photos under that draw and the pre-set GPS were all set up by the CIA to lead Ewan to approach Rycart (and tapped them all the way), so that they know what exactly Mike would have told Rycart. Of course this was a bit too risky for 整合負債the CIA to plan like this, so even myself don't find this convincing. 19. Ewan found Emmett and asked him questions. Emmett sent someone to kill Ewan after their conversation, because he realized that Ewan had reached the knowledge level of Mike and could no longer be kept around. 20. Ewan escaped, talked to Rycart, and then picked up by Adam. On the plane, the reason why Ewan had to tell Adam about "everything" because Rycart instructed him to do so (and try to see Adam's reaction). In the book, the conversation on the plane was taped by Ewan. But not in the film. 21. Adam felt angry after the conversation because Ewan told him that Mike sold him out to Rycart, but not because of the CIA content. He knew the theory about CIA from Mike directly anyway, just didn't know that Mike also told the theory to Rycart. And that's why he wanted to "have a meeting" with Ewan after going home. Perhaps also about the secret of his wife. But we would never know, because... ... 22. Adam was then killed at 濾桶the airport. In the book, there is a slight chance that Adam knew the killer and approached him proactively, giving a sign of a chance that he in fact what to kill himself anyway (but I don't think that's the case). In the film no hints for that. 23. After Adam was gone, Emmett and Ruth accessed the situation and felt that Ewan and Rycart didn't really get the real truth (about how Ruth instead of Adam is with the CIA). The false "truth" was how Adam being a CIA would buried with his death, and the interest of the investigation is gone. So therefore there is no immediate need to erase Ewan. They allowed him to finish the book first. 24. At the launch, Amelia casually mentioned about "it's all there at the beginning". Ewan heard that from Rycart before, but this time when he put his mind on that again he figured out something that he had never thought of --> the real truth is exposed by putting all the first words of each chapter together. 25. I admit that I have no idea why Ewan need to 酒店打工tell Ruth about his founding. That is somewhat suicidal. However the effect of the ending was stunning. Sound of a car crash and then flying papers, without showing exactly what had happened --> and that's the thing. It could be an accident, it could be a planned act by Emmett, it could be an immediate response by Ruth / Emmett after knowing the secret is cracked, or it could even be Ewan killing himself after knowing no where he could hide from this. But we never would know what really had happened. That's the dirty part of politics / CIA, and that's the beauty part of this ending. 26. However, I like the ending of the book more. "Ewan" in the book didn't inform Ruth about his knowing, and simply left the party and went home. He immediately fled to stay in hotels in the next few weeks to avoid the CIA. Soon after that there was a news about how Rycart died in an accident (supposed to be killed by CIA as well). He knew he would be next, so he wrote this book (the book that we are reading) in the 褐藻醣膠hotel, and passed the manuscript of this book to Kate (his former girlfriend who never appear in the film), and asked her to expose everything by showing this book to the public if anything happen to him. The reader assumed the "Ewan" in the book got kill eventually, and that's why we have a chance to read the book. It made a lot of sense. 27. For that, the book ends with this: "This puts me in something of a dilemma, as you may appreciate, now that we reach the final paragraph. Am I supposed to be pleased that you are reading this, or not? Pleased, of course, to speak at last in MY OWN VOICE. Disappointed, obviously, that it probably means I'M DEAD. But then, as my mother used to say, I'm afraid in this life you just can't have everything." 28. The ending echos very well with the starting sentence of the book (now I realize) : "The moment I heard how McAra (Mike) died, I should have walked away. I can see that now.. ..." You see, basically when the Ghost Ewan write the book he 買房子already KNEW that's the end of his life. 29. The name of the book is "The Ghost". Which I guess is better than the name "The Ghost Writer" because The Ghost means the ghost writer itself but also indicates the puppet show that Ruth playing Adam with, or how the PM of Britain in fact was a puppet controlled by the USA. But I got the strongest feeling about the name "The Ghost" when I watch the ending of the film and see how the body of Ewan got crushed and papers were flying to the sky as a symbol of how "soul" of a ghost was broken into pieces and flew off everywhere. I also get another feeling about "The Ghost" when I reached the end of the book and feel that I am reading a book written by a person who is already dead, while his job was to write something on behalf of another dead person. The feeling of "everything's all gone" is weird and sad. 30. That's the end. Cheers.